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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”